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Tuesday, 10 January 2017

(The Edge Financial Daily) PNB sticks to domestic investment in 2017

(Subtitle) Nevertheless, the scale of its international ventures is
likely to grow in time

BY ADAM AZIZ

KUALA LUMPUR: Permodalan Nasional
Bhd (PNB) will continue to focus on domestic investment in 2017 particularly in
equities, on the back of expectation of stability returning to the market this
year.

Nevertheless, the scale of its international
ventures is likely to grow in time, PNB chairman Tan Sri Abdul Wahid Omar said.

“At the moment our investment in international
property and equity accounts for only 2% of our total portfolio. From time to
time, we do look into diversifying our overseas investment.

“I think in time the number will increase,
but the bulk of our investment will remain in Malaysia. Our unitholders would
like to see more investment in the Malaysian econ-

omy,” Abdul Wahid said.

Abdul Wahid spoke to the press yesterday
after a ceremony to appoint AmBank Group Bhd as an official agent of Amanah
Saham Nasional Bhd (ASNB).

Currently, the nation’s biggest unit
trust fund is highly dependent on the local economy, with 98% of its funds
invested in the domestic market, most of which is funnelled into the nation’s
stock market.

One of ASNB’s core products, Amanah
Saham Bumiputera (ASB), paid its unitholders a 6.75 sen dividend and a bonus of
0.5 sen per unit for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2016 (FY16), the lowest
since FY09.

Nevertheless, ASB outperformed the
country’s equity market which recorded a negative total return of 1.7% in the
same period.

“2016 was challenging for Malaysia’s
equities market, but we expect corporate earnings to recover in 2017,” he
added.

“We are currently managing more than
212 billion units in circulation owned by some 12.9 million unitholders. Last
year alone, we paid a total of RM13.86 billion worth of income distribution. That’s
actually the challenge that we have to follow through.”

“We have currently some RM260 billion
under our management, which is made up of RM220 billion worth of public money
and another RM40 billion ringgit of our own fund,” Abdul Wahid said.

With the appointment of AmBank as
ASNB’s eighth official agent, the unit trust fund said it does not plan to add
more agents in the near term. The collaboration will bring the number of ASNB’s
agent branches to 2,200, which Abdul Wahid said should be sufficient.

Under the collaboration, AmBank will
offer all 12 of ASNB’s products through its 175 branches nationwide.

The bank is also only the third agent
to offer ASNB-related investment through the Employees Provident Fund (EPF).

“With this appointment, AmBank is
poised to expand a range of wealth and financial management products. This
marks our first collaboration with ASNB and we hope to achieve more
collaboration in the future with PNB and ASNB,” AmBank Group chairman Tan Sri
Azman Hashim said.